


Keep Holding On

by somebodytoldme



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Memory Loss, angst everywhere, hurt little comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somebodytoldme/pseuds/somebodytoldme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael never expected this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Holding On

**Author's Note:**

> The title is based off the song Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne. I would suggest giving it a listen while reading. (:  
> Honestly, I’ve had this idea for a while, but after the surgeon Rage Quit video I had to do it.   
> Warning: it is awful and full of angst. You've been warned.   
> I'm sorry.

Michael never thought something like this could ever happen. He always thought he, and his friends, were invincible. What were the chances of something happening to them, personally? It felt like one billion in the entire world.

The number of motor vehicles in America was relatively high, or that is what they say. They say, that on average about ninety people die in motor vehicle related accidents a day. It’s all they say this, they say that, and it is a load of bullshit statistics. And that is the real problem here, people aren’t fucking statistics.

He didn’t ever do the math in his head. Maybe, if he did, he’d of not walked out the door. The likelihood of falling and breaking your neck, the likelihood of developing skin cancer from the sun… But one never does suspect something like this can happen. Even if you did, what could you do? Stop living life?

Michael hasn’t really expected a lot of things in his life. He didn’t expect the video he uploaded, for shits and giggles, would become so popular. He didn’t expect this company to hire him to play fucking video games, like, what the fuck is that. He didn’t expect to like it so much. 

Most of all, he didn’t expect to love a fucking moron with an annoying accent. It was probably one of the hardest things to believe ever happened in his life, and it defied all normal possibilities… But Gavin wasn’t really normal.

He was special. And he annoyed the fucking shit out of Michael. He always asked the must dumb questions, and made even worse bets. He gagged and gurgled at stupid shit. He was actually still five years old, getting his finger stuck in his fucking desk, and it was often Michael that seemed to have to deal with him.

But there was other things. The way his smile would crinkle the corner of his eyes, or the way he just defused Michael with a good laugh. And god, did he ever make Michael laugh.

Michael never believed that’d he’d fall for another guy, but if there was anybody that made the sun shine a little brighter, it was Gavin. And after some denial, on both ends, they were finally together. Perfectly.

Which is why he didn’t expect it. Not that night they were driving back home from the airport. Gavin was asleep in the passenger side, and Michael was driving them back. He didn’t expect a drunk driver to swerve into his lane. 

He didn’t expect to be hit head on. He didn’t expect to wake in the wreck, alone. Didn’t expect the unbearable pain in his chest. The panic that came when he spotted Gavin several yards away. Especially not to look down and see a ten inch deep pole in-bedded in his chest.

—-

“He’s coming to…”

The words echo in his mind, and his brain is bogged down, unable to process what they mean.

“…Michael?”

He blinks up at the burning light, and god the world hurts. 

“Michael?”

He licks his lips, or at least he tries too, his whole body is numb. That’s his name… Michael.

“Hey, there, man, you really gave us a scare there.”

He looks up at a face he doesn’t recognize. It’s a guy with dark brown hair, and kind brown eyes framed with dark glasses. Another man with glasses looks over at him, cautiously reaching for his arm. “It’s good to have you back, man,” he says solemnly. The stranger really doesn’t sound to pleased though…

And Michael is just starting to feel really uncomfortable as the guy with brown hair opens the door to let more people in.

All these people come over and say how good it is for him to be awake with solemn expressions… They pat his back, reach for his shoulder to squeeze… And it has to be the most elaborate joke anybody has played on him because he doesn’t recognize anybody here.

Finally, after everybody has had their chance to shake his hand, or what-fucking-ever, the guy with brown hair, a bread, and tattoos steps forward. His eyes a bloodshot, and he looks like a mess… Michael might of actually liked him, if he wasn’t playing this joke with him. He wished he could remember how to work his tongue. 

“Listen… this might not be a good time, but about Gavin…”

He can’t take it anymore. This is really going too far, everybody in the room is avoiding his eye at this point, talking about some guy he doesn’t even know. He opens his mouth, ticked off and tired, “who the fuck is Gavin?”

Silence.

—-

The doctor says that he was in a car crash. He says that he must of developed some kind of amnesia from the impact… Which, honestly, sounds way too fucking chick-flick movie for Michael’s tastes. Yet, it is hard to believe that the doctor is in on this joke.

So, instead, he allows these strangers into his life. He allows them to tell him what the other Michael does… Apparently he makes videos for the internet. He has this show called Rage Quit. Ray, the first guy he met when he woke up, fills in a lot of the details. He even brings in his laptop to show Michael the videos. And, fuck, it is his voice. It is him, the other him… But it is so fucking creepy, to be this other person… He doesn’t even remember.

The second guy, Burnie, his boss, says he will cover all the hospital expenses. That Michael shouldn’t worry, but just focus on making a swift recovery. So, that is what he does. 

Michael tries his best, in the hospital, to remember things. Sometimes things will just come to him, little stupid shit. He’ll listen to Ray, Jack, or Ryan talking about something, and suddenly he will remember it. The details he misses, the guys happily fill in. And, so, he feels more and more comfortable with it. This other Michael that is him. He.

One question, however, does not leave his mind. Who is Gavin? He has asked everybody he works with, and every time he does ask- they brush it off. Geoff, the one who brought it up in the first place, was the only one to not flat out deny the existence of a Gavin… He just looked sorrowfully at his hands and said something like, “I think it is best we don’t talk about that right now.” Or “How was lunch today?”

—-

It isn’t until Michael is allowed a laptop, that he gets his answer. His fingers hesitate on the keys as he types in the name… A part of him, a small part, is telling him not to search it. That it can only be bad news if everybody is avoiding the topic. Yet, a much larger part needs to know.

Gavin of Roosterteeth. Gavin Free. He searches Gavin Free. The headlines…

Gavin Free Gay?  
Terrible crash, drunk drinker takes out the pair…  
Gavin Free is a donor…

His blood runs cold. His hand traces the jagged line cut down his chest. A heart transplant… 

He slams the laptop shut.

That night he dreams of smiling green eyes, and a endlessly bright smile… Ones that belong to none other than Mr. Free.

Michael doesn’t go searching online for anymore answers.

—-

But it is answers that Michael still needs. And the only one that he can really break, or has the best chance at breaking, is Geoff.

“Geoff, please, tell me… What happened to Gavin? Please, please, I need to know,” he pleads for the thousandth time. He can already see Geoff cracking.

And one day he finally does. “He passed a while ago…” comes the broken words, lamenting like a parent whose lost a child. Yet, something bright comes of Geoff as he speaks, “but I think he was the happiest he ever was before he… anyway, he still lives on. Some what.”

And Michael suddenly feels uncomfortable under Geoff’s gaze.

—-

Michael leaves the hospital after several months of recovery. He is so happy to get the fuck out. Even so, he still feels terribly apprehensive about getting back in a car. Just the sound of the engine makes him twitch. He is forced to close his eyes somewhere during the ride and count to one hundred in order to not panic.

But when he gets home, the apartment is oddly familiar to him. He already knows what door is the bedroom, and what one is the bathroom. Jack refuses to leave, and stays by sleeping on the sofa. Even so, the house feels.. empty. His closet is only half full, the cabinet is half empty.

Even so, he still goes about his day. Brushes his teeth, eats, takes his medication and goes to work. He tries his best to relearn the job… Yet, he can’t bring himself to fill the spaces in his closet.

—-

One night, when Michael can’t sleep he decides to rearrange the closet. It’s then that he notices something is wedged down in the corner. It turns out to be a photograph depicting him and another, taller, guy with sandy blond hair. He has green eyes and a bright smile. Michael knows, instantly, that this is Gavin.

Gavin, oh Gavin, how could he forget that smile. The way those eyes would look at with him with adoration. The way he never ever expected to be kissing those lips, but how much he had enjoyed them anyway.

He had never expected to be so lucky.

He photograph blurs in his sight, his hands tremble. Count, and breath, count and breath, he tells himself. But how- how can he.

He never expected that car to collide with him… Never expected to wake up alone in that car.

He never expected to wake up and not even remember the love of his life. He never expected to realize, too late, that Gavin Free was gone. He died in a car crash… He was a donor.

The pipe in his chest.

Michael stumbles for his phone, typing in the numbers, and listening impatiently to the rings. The voice is quick to answer, “Michael? Jesus… it’s like… two in the morning.”

“D-did Gavin donate a heart?”

“Michael,” Geoff sounds much more awake and alert at this point. 

But Michael doesn’t wait to finish because he already knows the truth. God, oh god. God…. His… He… “He…. I had a heart transplant in the hospital. …I wasn’t even put on the waiting list.”

“Michael, please, take it easy. Deep breaths, count with me… one, two…”

He couldn’t hear anymore. Just feel the swift pulse of his beating, of Gavin’s beating heart. His heart donor… Was none other than his Gavin. His sunshine, his true love… And he can’t breath he can’t. 

He doesn’t know how long he stayed curled up on the floor boards, only that it was long enough for Ryan to get there. Geoff must of called him because he helps Michael up without question.

Fuck.

—-

“Gavin… by the time oxygen got back to his brain, most of it was gone. He was… technically, brain dead. He signed the papers to be a donor beforehand… And you were… were a mess.”

Even hearing the words now, Michael still can’t believe them. His heart races in his chest. Gavin.

“So, you were given his… You know.”

Stupid fucking moron, goddammit. Michael didn’t want it. Not at all.

“It was always yours to begin with, or at least that is what he’d always say. You see, Michael, Gavin would of wanted you to hold on, to live and be to happy…”

—-

And he doesn’t know if he can do that. Not when his sun is gone from this world. But he still had Gavin’s heart, and Gavin certainly had his.

But if he sits in his empty apartment, and presses his hand against his chest he can feel the pulse there. It’s pumping blood through his veins, strong and warm… He can imagine Gavin’s arms around him, can almost feel his lips against his neck… His voice whispering, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Gavin,” he whispers into the dark.

And his heart skips a beat.


End file.
